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Comment by clawrencewenham | Hacker News Reader

I like that the manuscript is on display, but I'm a little disturbed by the "holiest of holies" treatment, equating it to the Dead Sea Scrolls even.

General Relativity is dynamite, but it isn't scripture, it's a scientific theory that'll have to step aside when a superior theory comes to take its place some day. Then it'll be historically significant, but not "holy".

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Thought the same. It doesn't seem it has historical value either. For that, a microfilm would've been enough --the objective should be to preserve, not to fetishize; but this looks like a relic of the Secular Church of Science. Come to touch the same pages which Einstein's Divine Pen wrote onto!

Seems that, for all our skepticism, enlightenment and theories of relativity, we just went and exchanged atheist saints for religious martyrs. The irony is delicious...

Perhaps a less disturbing comparison would be to the way the US National Archives treats the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. I don't think the historical significance of GR is that big (and personally, I think special relativity was a more significant break from previous thinking), but a manuscript of Newton's Principia would be treasured like this.

When a superior theory comes to take it's place, it will still be historically significant and an amazing feat of intellectual prowess which correlates extremely well with material reality.

Texts on the other hand that are held up as "holy" are merely lies that people have killed and died over. If anything the only disturbing thing about the comparison is that the sacred books of religion are utterly unworthy of comparison to relativity.

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